One of the most popular secondary questions asked by medical schools is “why our program?” Saying why you’re attracted to a particular school can be a hard thing to explain, especially when you’ve looked at so many programs that they’ve all begun to blur. I think that’s why I so often see the same answer:…
Med School Kicks Off: Ten Tips to Get You Through The Season
Medical school hopefuls are getting ready to work on those applications. This can be an awfully hectic time as you try to stay on top of everything. Here are ten tips to help you hit the ground running: 1. Get cozy with the AMCAS/AACOMAS. These two services (the acronyms stand for the American Medical Colleges…
First Drafts of Personal Statements: Let Yourself Go
Writing the first draft of your personal statement is probably the hardest part of the whole application process. And it makes sense – it’s not easy to capture so much of your experience onto a single page. Moving Your First Draft from Just OK to Simply Spectacular I’ve read hundreds of first drafts over the…
13 Postbac Program Recommendations
As the clock winds down for medical school admission decisions, many applicants are wondering what’s next. Post-baccalaureate programs can be a great way to strengthen a future application, as well as to take advantage of dedicated professional development opportunities. However, you’ll need to act fast if you hope to join a program this year. Here…
Meaningful Experiences For Medical School Applicants
Part of your AMCAS application requires that you write about your “meaningful experiences.” Do you want to create a winning AMCAS application? Then let’s jump right into learning about how to choose and write about your experiences… “I became a better listener from volunteering on help lines.” “Joining the college debate team enhanced my ability…
How to Improve and Present Your Experiences for Med School Reapplication
In the final section of our Medical School Reapplicant Advice: 6 Tips for Success series, we’ll discuss how reapplicants should improve, and then present, their experiences. One last factor that can seriously hurt your chances is a lack of substantive, ongoing experiences. Medical schools want students who are passionate and committed – to the world around them…
Improve Your MCAT Score for Medical School Acceptance
In the next section of our Medical School Reapplicant Advice: 6 Tips for Success, we’ll move from increasing your GPA to improving your MCAT score. Fortunately, it’s easier to tackle a poor MCAT score than a poor GPA. While you should not retake the exam too many times (don’t bother retaking if you’ve scored above a 32), a better-prepared…
Boost Your GPA for Medical School Acceptance
In our last post, we talked about how to best present yourself in your secondaries and interviews. Today we’ll move forward and discuss ways to boost your GPA, another important feature of your med school application profile. Feeling a bit fragile after these first sections? That’s to be expected – you’ve just undergone a pretty brutal…
When Will Medical Schools Give You an Answer?
We are often asked: • How long does a medical school have to invite an applicant to submit a secondary application? • How long does a medical school have to respond and either invite the applicant to an interview, or say thanks, but no thanks? The fact is that there’s no rule governing how long a medical…
Presenting Yourself to Medical Schools: Other Communications
With the multi-staged admissions process, applicants can make an impact at each step – or be weeded out. Your assessment continues by looking at other ways you communicated with the admissions committee, and whether or not they helped you past the next hurdle. Secondaries: Your secondary essays go beyond the initial introduction and flesh out your application….
Presenting Yourself to Medical Schools: Your Primary Application
The second part of your assessment will examine how you presented yourself to the admissions committees. Keep in mind that these aspects of your application are necessarily subjective – there are often no right or wrong answers – but they should be subjected to the same rigorous critique as the previous section. Unlike your MCAT…
Reapplying to Med School: Evaluating Your Medical School Profile
Hopefully by now, you have your acceptance in hand and are gearing up for Fall. If so, then congratulations and good luck! But what if all you’ve received are rejections? To start with, know you’re not alone. Last year, only 21,030 applicants made the cut, out of 53,042 applicants – that’s about 40%. And although…
The Activities Section: The Side Dishes That Make Your AMCAS Application Delicious
It’s summertime, and for me that means barbecues on the deck, specifically with the company of friends. I was recently enjoying a cook-out at one friend’s home in particular, and gracious as my hosts were, I felt a bit daunted by the huge piece of steak that filled my plate, accompanied by a small scoop…
Early Decision for Medical School: Does It Make Sense For You?
Do you have a dream school, the one place where you’ve always wanted to study medicine, and no other place will do? Do you have a compelling reason for this one program, maybe a spouse whose job requires them to be in this location or your only living family member is in the area? There…
8 To-Dos for Canadians Applying to U.S. Med Schools
Each year, Canadian medical school hopefuls look across the border for their medical education. While there are obvious challenges (adapting to a different health care system, returning to a Canadian residency, and much higher costs), the higher acceptance rates at US programs (about 40% overall for US allopathic programs, as compared to just 17% in…
GPA Issues When Applying to Med School: What to do With a “W”
Almost everybody has a dark spot on their GPA. Usually it’s a failed class or a semester of poor grades. But lately, I’ve received several queries about how a “W” on your transcript will affect your chance of admission to medical school. The truth is that withdrawing from one or two classes is not going…
7 Med School Acceptances: The Early Bird’s Story
Cydney Foote, one of Accepted’s most experienced medical school admissions consultants, worked last year with a client, Ben (not his real name), who started working on his personal statement in February and was accepted by October. He certainly had good grades and MCAT, but he also maximized those assets. Read more about his story, tactics,…
Med School Applicants: It’s Not Too Late to Interview!
As the medical school application season progresses, you might be getting anxious, especially if you haven’t gotten the response you want yet. Don’t be discouraged. While it is late, medical school are still (and will be for some time) inviting applicants to interview. Here are a few things that you can do to maximize your…
Dear Diary…: Advice for Third-Year Medical Students
What are you doing to prepare for the residency match? Chances are, you’re up to your eyeballs with rotations and exams and everything else that goes into finishing your medical degree. Chances are, you’re really not thinking much about your personal statement. Not to sound like a Bowflex commercial, but what if I told you…
Watch Words: Advice For M3 Students
In the past, I’ve blogged about keeping a diary during your rotations. Here are three things you can watch for during your rotations that will get you in great shape for later: 1. Watch your attendings. What did your attending do today that struck you? This can be anything, from observing how they reacted to a patient’s…
